MLS front offices don’t stop scouting when the window closes; they change lenses. Over the past decade, that lens has largely focused either on younger, less-established players or mid-career veterans who could certainly play in top European leagues. The Hany Mukhtars, Diego Rossis and Evanders of the world.
That cohort of players still makes up the backbone of most good-to-great MLS teams. You don’t really win trophies without them, and I don’t think that will change any time soon. Nor should it.
Something, however, has happened in the past few years. Many MLS front offices – including, I want to be clear, ones that already employ guys like the trio named above – have turned their gaze back toward the biggest names in world soccer. It’s a return to what we saw in the first days of the league, back in the late ‘90s, and then once again in the first seven or eight years of the Designated Player era. Every global star on the far side of 30 had a potential home here.
Following the arrival of David Villa in 2015, however, that changed. Villa was a huge success; his teammates in New York City, Frank Lampard and Andrea Pirlo, were not, nor were Steven Gerrard and Nigel de Jong in LA. Didier Drogba, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Wayne Rooney and Zlatan Ibrahimovic provided only fleeting regular-season moments, but nothing high-level or sustained. Really, you could (and I would) argue that, after Villa, there wasn’t a single post-30 global star who came to MLS and lived up to expectations until Leo Messi joined Inter Miami eight years later. And so global stars landed here more and more infrequently.
Until now, anyway, as Messi’s 2023 MLS arrival does seem to have opened the floodgates. He was soon joined in Miami by his old Barça buddies, Sergio Busquets, Luis Suárez and Jordi Alba, and you know the kind of success they had in the subsequent two-and-a-half years. LAFC tried their own version of the model by signing Olivier Giroud in the summer of 2024; when that didn’t work, they moved on and added another global superstar in Son Heung-Min in the summer of 2025. That one obviously did work.
So, too, did Vancouver’s out-of-character decision to sign Thomas Müller, which also came this past summer. Müller, like Messi and the gang down in Miami, has already won a trophy with his MLS side. I fully expect both of them to add to that total over the next 12 months, and for Son to get his first with LAFC.
But there is a difference between this era and the previous iteration of “let’s sign guys we’ve all seen play in the Champions League!” Simply, this era of MLS front offices seems to be smarter and more targeted. Nobody’s made one of these signings to prop up a broken roster; instead, each of these guys has been brought in to catalyze a good team and make them potentially great. They have been bought in as force magnifiers, not saviors.
And so that’s the lens through which I’d like you to view the following list. I’m about to name a bunch of guys who we’ve all watched in the Champions League for many, many years, and I’d, frankly, like to see all of them in MLS.
But they’d be coming to enhance what’s already working, not to fix something that’s broken.
Salah is under contract for 18 more months, until the summer of 2027, and wouldn’t come cheap, even as things have begun to spiral in Liverpool. This is just one year after he put up 29g/18a in league play and led the Reds to their second Premier League title. Sentiments can change real quick.
He’s spent the vast majority of his career as a winger, just like Son (though on the opposite wing). And just like Son, he’s also spent some time as a center forward in certain alignments. Honestly, that’s where I’d expect him to line up if he landed in MLS.
Of course, making that happen would be tough, as teams from Saudi Arabia and Egypt would surely break the bank for him, as would, I bet, a handful of Serie A teams (there are currently reports out of Italy that Roma are opening the checkbook).
Best MLS fit: Tom Bogert of The Athletic says it’s not “realistic for San Diego FC to attempt to sign Salah from Liverpool in January,” but this column’s for all of 2026, isn’t it? And there sure is another transfer window later in 2026, isn’t there?
It’s easy to imagine Salah fitting perfectly as a highly mobile 9 for San Diego this summer as Son did for LAFC last summer. It should be noted that Bogert said on Soccerwise that if Salah does come to MLS, he feels safe predicting it’ll be to San Diego.
Lewandowski may not be the best all-around No. 9 of the past 20 years – I think most people would hand that to either Suárez or Karim Benzema. But Lewy is, unquestionably, the best pure goalscorer among the crop of pure strikers who’ve graced the world stage since the late ‘00s.
And he’s still got it, with 9g/2a in 942 minutes for Barcelona this season after putting up an incredible 42g/3a across all competitions last year. He’s just 10 goals away from entering Barca’s all-time top-10 goalscorers list, and he’s now got more than 700 career goals between club and country. He’s a machine.
The 37-year-old is out of contract this summer, and while there’s been talk of him signing on for one more year with his current club, the smarter bet is that Barça sign a younger No. 9 to compete with Ferran Torres and let Lewandowski walk.
Best MLS fit: For cultural reasons, Chicago (home of the largest contingent of Poles outside of Poland) makes a ton of sense, though I can’t really see a way for Lewandowski and Hugo Cuypers to work together in Gregg Berhalter’s system.
Now, Cuypers is under contract until the end of 2026, with a club option for 2027, and would definitely have value in the league if the Fire were open to moving him.
As with Salah, I’d be shocked if any of these pieces were truly on the board until summer.
Silva’s probably been the second-best midfielder of the past dozen years (behind Luka Modrić), most of which has been spent winning one title after another with Manchester City and a handful with Portugal.
He’s been a ball-moving, field-tilting genius out there, much more of a No. 8 than a No. 10 for both club and country. But in MLS, he’d play either as a free No. 8 in a 4-3-3 that tilts towards his side, with more playmaking responsibility than the other No. 8, or as a pure No. 10 who’d dish out one tap-in after another.
Silva is still just 31, but is out of contract this summer. Any MLS team that intends to sign him will likely have to fight off some top clubs from the "big five" leagues, as well as the likes of Fenerbahçe, Benfica and the usual crop from Saudi Arabia.
Best MLS fit: If you’re an NYCFC fan, you couldn’t ask for a better Maxi Moralez successor/replacement.
This is wishful thinking on my part, as all the latest reporting points to the 30-year-old Gnabry taking a pay cut to stick around with Bayern for two more seasons. He’s been excellent so far, racking up 5g/8a in about 1,200 minutes, alternating between left wing and a sort of false trequartista role, and was key in Germany’s 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign as well.
So I don’t really think this one has much of a chance of happening until the summer of 2028. But I wanted to mention it because Gnabry is basically the fully evolved version of Mukhtar, who’s been one of the best attacking players in league history: a chance creation machine who’s devastating both on and off the ball, and is especially dominant in the open field.
And he is still technically out of contract this summer. At least for now.
Best MLS fit: It’s wild to say this given they have such drastically different game models, but he’d be perfect for either Columbus or FC Dallas. His ability to toggle between conducting the game with the ball or floating to find space off of it… perfect for the Crew. His ability to slot in underneath a big No. 9 and essentially run a two-man game… perfect for Dallas.
